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"This marks the first and only demo mission that Crew Dragon will fly without humans on board."

Almost.

Next flight, without crew, is the in-flight abort test, where they launch, but shut the rocket down at about Mach one and let the excape system pull the capsule away. http://www.parabolicarc.com/20...

Then comes the first flight with crew.

... would you mind dropping a couple of astronauts off at the ISS?

No, but he tried: http://www.parabolicarc.com/20...

I think both NASA and ESA said they had looked at reusing booster but did not find the idea economical after simulations.

Links I could find 1: Europeans. 2: Russians. These agencies have various ideas of how to compete with Space-X, I guess this is very good news for whoever wants to put a satellite in LEO.

Indeed, here is video of three employees walking in the crosswalk being hit by a car.

Russia has been lucky that their launches that have blown up more recently have been uncrewed. See here:

The list of Russian launch accidents over the last six years includes:
13 complete failures resulting in the loss of all payloads;
3 partial failures that left spacecraft in the wrong orbits;
complete loss of 20 spacecraft;
6 Russian GLONASS navigation satellites destroyed;
and, an ambitious Mars mission left stranded in Earth orbit

'It's virtually impossible to determine how much recovery will bring down the costs of launch because we don't know how much it will cost to refurbish the recovered vehicle. Certainly it will be cheaper than building a new one, but how much cheaper is impossible to predict... especially in the beginning with zero experience.'

I am going by what SpaceX themselves have estimated.Reusable Falcon 9 Would Cost $5 to $7 Million Per Launch. 13,000kg to LEO at that price is $500/kg or $209/lb. Falcon Heavy's payload is 53,000 kgs.

SpaceX has stated that in order to achieve the full economic benefit of the reusable technology, it is necessary that the reuse be both rapid and complete—without the long and costly refurbishment period or partially reusable design that plagued earlier attempts at reusable launch vehicles. SpaceX has been explicit that the "huge potential to open up space flight" is dependent on achieving both complete and rapid reusability. CEO Musk has publicly stated that success with the technology development effort could reduce "the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100" because the cost of the propellant/oxidizer on the Falcon 9 is only 0.3 percent of the total cost of the vehicle.

And yes they did learn much from the shuttle program. They plan to inspect, refuel and relaunch in a matter of days so those costs will be minimal. Remember the boosters are not going into space nor the stress of reentry.

It goes against every instinct in my body to defend the GOP, but it's a bit unfair to attack the party for "block[ing] private space" when just below this article was another article about Congress making policy to suit the private space industry, mainly on the Republican side:

The commercial space industry had a great day on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, with the Republican-controlled House Science Committee giving it most of what it wanted while swatting away proposed changes from the minority Democrats.

Among the goodies approved by the committee: a decade-long extension of the moratorium on regulating commercial human spaceflight; a nine-year extension of industry-government cost sharing for damages caused by launch accidents; and an act that would give companies property rights to materials they mine from asteroids.

For decades launching these rockets was not a problem for Russia.

The problems at Roscosmos couldn't have anything to do with financial irregularities and misuse of funds, or financial pressures caused by the current economic crisis. Nope. Nothing to see here. Move along.

This marks the end of Pegasus.

Let's see what a few seconds on Google can find us:

http://www.parabolicarc.com/20...

"The vibrations and oscillations in the version they used for the first three test flights would have torn the ship apart well if it had been fired for anywhere near full duration of about a minute."

It refers to a Times article which is behind their paywall, so I can't read it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

"There have also been accidents where nitrous oxide decomposition in plumbing has led to the explosion of large tanks."

Weren't the engineers killed in the accident while developing the Spaceship Two engine killed by an exploding NOX tank? I couldn't find the details.

Yes, and VG ignored warnings from an outside propulsion expert: http://slashdot.org/submission...

Let's see what a few seconds on Google can find us:

http://www.parabolicarc.com/20...

"The vibrations and oscillations in the version they used for the first three test flights would have torn the ship apart well if it had been fired for anywhere near full duration of about a minute."

It refers to a Times article which is behind their paywall, so I can't read it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

"There have also been accidents where nitrous oxide decomposition in plumbing has led to the explosion of large tanks."

Weren't the engineers killed in the accident while developing the Spaceship Two engine killed by an exploding NOX tank? I couldn't find the details.

......windnwar wrote: show nested quotes http://www.parabolicarc.com/ Go there, they have been following the issues for a couple years now. The original engine was only stable doing a massive injection of helium, more so then could be done in flight, so they switched to a plastic grain and they have been pushing the test schedule to meet deadlines rather than meet the results they needed. The engine was under powered for the weight and they had to change the altitude they were going to be flying too. This modified engine was supposed to end up in the second version of spaceship two due to the modifications that would be needed, instead it ended up in the first one as they didn't have time. The program is appears to be a mess, and they don't appear to be following a safe testing schedule. Even in the press conference today they were asked had this engine flown and he answered yes, though it had not, the engine had to be reconfigured for the different fuel grain, so it has not flown. Its not just a simple swap of the grain. Given the description of multiple people that witnessed the flight, it suffered a hard start that destroyed the motor and led to the loss of the craft and one of the pilots lives.

Not just SpaceX, but Bigelow and Blue Origin.
The fact is, that to get to the moon and mars, we need multiple companies that can compete but also provide redunancy.
Sadly, the GOP is intent on killing off private space. Even the tea* are allowing the neo-cons to pull this shit.

For example, Shelby is DESPERATE to kill private space. He and othe rest of the GOP would rather spend 3-4 billion / year for the next 20 years building the SLS AND SEND ANOTHER 2B TO PUTIN then invest less than 2B into American businesses to get this going.

For those of you who live in these states with these senators, please write them and tell them to stop this BS.

"Such launches are done with a Russian rocket right now"

more correctly, the launches are done with an American rocket, using a Russian engine (RD-180).

see: http://www.forbes.com/sites/lo...
http://www.parabolicarc.com/20...

(the article has it right; the summary is inaccurate).

Guess why you haven't seen a single picture of video of the re-entry of a Dragon capsule.

Actually there are buckets of photos of recovered capsules. And the first one, I believe, was even donated to the Smithsonian.

Since every CRS flight has returned experiments and samples from ISS, if they failed to reenter properly, SpaceX wouldn't have received payment.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/dragon_ocean_crs1.jpg

http://seradata.com/SSI/wp-content/uploads/mt/flightglobalweb/blogs/hyperbola/2012/10/30/dragon%20crs1%20small.jpg

http://www.pddnet.com/sites/pddnet.com/files/KRT-US-NEWS-SPACEX-LAUNCH-3-LA.jpg

Anyone expecting printed materials to survive environments typically found inside jet or rocket engines needs to be awfully patient.

Or, you know, NASA.

Actually come to think of it, Proton faceplanting spectacularly at Baikonur might be a bit bigger, in terms of explosive power

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2013/07/01/spectacular-video-of-russian-proton-failure/

Apparently, this story is shifting. Few are really certain if the 17M is for hardware or not. However, Parabalic seems to have the right attitude: Money going towards BEAM, but not sure what/where.

I will say that 17M would be below the cost of this module. However, it would also let bigelow get his lines going so that in 2015, he could start putting up a space station.

And one more bit

In the past few days, ESA’s 15 m-diameterPerth dish was modified by the addition of a ‘feedhorn’ antenna at the side of the main dish so as to transmit very low-power signals over a wide angle in the hopes of triggering a response from the satellite.

Where do you get that information for Bigelow and the manned Brazilian space program?

I don't know what capsule that the Brazilian Space Agency is going to be using, but Brazil is one of the countries who have signed an agreement to lease and/or purchase one of the Bigelow modules. I presume that would involve either purchasing spaceflight from one of the existing companies or perhaps creating their own space capsule to get up to that space station on their own.

Bigelow doesn't have the list of countries on their website but there are some other stories that have come up fairly recently. This story might interest you on this issue:

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/07/18/aeb-president-wants-to-triple-brazilian-0space-budget/

The Brazilian space program has been in the news in a few other cases, including some work in the CTA and the AEB starting to get serious about Brazilian access to space.

Elon has publicly directly stated that it can and produced a video showing it happening, what more proof do you want?

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/05/03/nasa-send-dragon-mars/

http://weirdthings.com/2011/04/did-space-x-just-show-its-secret-plans-for-a-mission-to-mars/

Ok - so the US gov has a budget again, and is betting heavily on "Commercial Space" picking up the debris of NASA's epic failure to develop a new crew launcher. But does this hope have any basis in reality or is NewSpace just a bunch of scifi boys playing with toys? Neal Stephenson works at Blue Origin, Gary Hudson of Roton Rocket fame recently channeled Star Wars' Admiral Ackbar, and SpaceX seems to have picked up a scifi scribe of their own in Ralph Ewig. Are these really the nation's best last hope, or are they a bunch of dreamers who can't separate the "science" from the "fiction"?

Actually, the U.S. administration has already admitted that the current export control system is messed up. In April 2010 U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for a major overhaul of America’s export control regime, saying the current system is outdated, hurts America’s competitiveness, and does not adequately protect national security. Of course, admitting there's a problem is not the same as making a change that solves it (or makes it better), but at least they know there are problems and are trying to find solutions. I particularly like this part: "One major culprit is an overly broad definition of what should be subject to export classification and control. The real-world effect is to make it more difficult to focus on those items and technologies that truly need to stay in this country. Frederick the Great’s famous maxim that “he who defends everything defends nothing” certainly applies to export control."

The article says SpaceX got $278 million from NASA to develop the rocket. Apparently we spent $1.500 billion on Ares in FY10 alone, and spent $445 million on a single sub-orbital test flight for Ares in '09.

Here is Garriott's complete statement from a DIFFERENT article, and it is pretty clear he is writing tongue-in-cheek: http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/03/23/rover-discovered-garriott-ponders-lunar-property-rights/

For some reason this only got posted to the politics.slashdot page (where it's gotten all of 2 comments), but since I figured others would be interested in learning more I'll re-post the details here, with relevant links included:

The White House has announced that on April 15 the President will be visiting Florida to host a conference on the Administration's 'new vision for America's future in space,' which is focused on developing new technologies and capabilities needed for sustainable exploration of 'the Moon, asteroids, and eventually Mars.' The White House's plans for reinvigorating NASA are facing vocal opposition from several congressmen in Florida, Texas, and Alabama, due to its outright cancellation of the Constellation/Ares program, which was found to be 'fundamentally un-executable' but is/was an important source of jobs in many areas.

Well, here is one of the relevant parts of the report. Interpret it how you like:

The Committee also examined the design and development of Orion. Many concepts are possible for crew-exploration vehicles, and NASA clearly needs a new spacecraft for travel beyond low-Earth orbit. The Committee found no compelling evidence that the current design will not be acceptable for its wide variety of tasks in the exploration pro- gram. However, the Committee is concerned about Orion’s recurring costs. The capsule is considerably larger and more massive than previous capsules (e.g., the Apollo capsule), and there is some indication that a smaller and lighter four-person Orion could reduce operational costs. However, a redesign of this magnitude would likely result in more than a year of additional development time and a significant increase in development cost, so such a redesign should be considered carefully before being implemented.

As far as I understand, the Boeing capsule is not the (Lockheed Martin) Orion scaled back. We are replacing a giant prime contractor by one other. And this capsule is still said to be bigger than the Apollo capsule. So I think you can understand why I am a little skeptical about gains in time or money. Of course, only time will tell.

Yeah I was a bit intrigued by this myself. The entire article discusses a new heavy lift vehicle, but has absolutely no specifications or details. Is it liquid, solid, or hybrid? Will it be developed in-house by NASA or contracted out? What exactly do they mean by 'simpler?'

I checked Spaceflightnow, SpaceFellowship, and ParabolicArc and couldn't find anything but a parent of the original ScienceInsider article. Google doesn't reveal a whole lot at cursory glance either. Hell I don't even see anything on NASA's own website. If anyone digs up some particulars, please post some links, I would be very interested in seeing them.

Also, offtopic, but for those who say Slashdot is behind the news release cycle and doesn't post breaking news, considering it just posted a story that 4 other space news websites haven't picked up yet, I'd say you've just been proven wrong =P

Also, you might want to have a look at the latest Futron Study...Check out this article if you don't want to give out your info to download the study itself.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2009/10/30/armadillos-mccormack-robbed-ngllc-judges/

The other team had a whole extra day to improve their results that Armadillo did not. This is totally and blatantly unfair, and he has every right to be pissed.

Garbage like this will dissuade other teams from entering, no doubt.

Yes, we have. Other missions have detected hydrogen.

Cite. The Apollo astronauts' samples yield hydrogen in ppb quantities. Lunar Prospector suggested there might be some at the poles, but subsequent followup attempts to find water or any other hydrogen-bearing minerals have come up empty.

As I understand it, if it's distributed throughout the regolith

Yes. In *ppb quantities*. Completely impractical to extract.

As I recall, about three quarters of the solar wind is hydrogen. The other quarter is virtually all helium, which is also useful.

For what, making your voice sound funny? The main use for helium in rocketry is as a pressurant, but on the moon, there are much better approaches than that.

And don't get into the Helium-3 fusion pipe dream. :P

Whether harvesting roughly a quarter kilogram (halved for lunar night) of hydrogen per square meter per year

*MILLI*gram, not kilogram. A quarter *milligram*. A quarter kilogram per year would take a collector 100'x100' across, *assuming* no celestial or collection losses, no night, and a heliostat tracker. And a quarter kilogram is nothing.

There's some pretty cool video of White Knight Two flying at Oshkosh here:

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2009/08/video-all-the-virgin-galactic.html

There's also some notes from a panel discussion on the craft. Some highlights:

* Production run for the program is set up for 12 WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft and 50 SpaceShipTwo crafts;
* This is the first all-composites aircraft, something that the aviation industry needs to embrace more;
* WhiteKnightTwo is not just an aircraft, it is a spacecraft delivery system that is capable of delivering cargo into space cheaply; [orbital microsatellite launch]
* Scaled and Virgin are confident they can build a WhiteKnightThree that will allow they to launch even larger payloads into space;
* Rutan said WhiteKnightTwo is very manueverable, and he expected to put the vehicle through aerobatic manuevers at the Oshkosh show next year;
* Whitehorn didnâ(TM)t seem to like this idea very much, vigorously shaking his head and trying to dissuade the designer from such an idea.

You might be interested to know that the Appolo astronauts saw bright flashes as a result of cosmic rays passing through their vitreous humour.

The same phenomenon has even been experienced closer to Earth on Mir and at least one soviet cosmonaut is attributing his cataracts to space radiation.